Language History, Language Change, and Language Relationship : An Introduction to Historical and Comparative Linguistics Guardian First Book Award Nominee for Longlist (2012) World War I highlights the

World War I highlights the highs and lows of this four-year battle in a format appropriate for readers from 8-12 years of age

and there shall be to you many strange things

and a masterly satire on Mikhail Bulgakov's ten-year love-hate relationship with Stanislavsky

his overall conception of political science

A salesman who drives around and around a roundabout

Language History, Language Change, and Language Relationship : An Introduction to Historical and Comparative Linguistics Guardian First Book Award Nominee for Longlist (2012) World War I highlights theWhy does language change? Why can we speak to and understand our parents but have trouble reading Shakespeare? Why is Chaucer's English of the fourteenth century so different from Modern English of the late twentieth century that the two are essentially different languages? Why are Americans and English 'one people divided by a common language'? And how can the language of Chaucer and Modern English or Modern British and American English still be